Rathi Jafer, Director of InKo Centre,

she talks about Medea and its Double

The audience waited with bated breath as they were drawn into the semi-darkened stage that silently held musicians sitting still, facing each other, perfectly reposed, against the dramatic blood-red backdrop with what looked like an umbilical cord holding the set together seamlessly.  In the half light of what could be either the moon or the sun that shone across the stage and lit a pale gleam on the quiet water body that divided the stage and the musicians on either side, was the centre stage, expectant of the action that was about to unfold. High up above the stage, against a black strip of cloth, shone as surtitles, the words ‘Medea and its Double’.  The silence was soulful, reflective, promising.  As the bell broke the shrine-like silence, reinforcing from the start the very Eastern moorings of this production, I sat with the audience at the close of the annual Hindu Metroplus Theatre Festival in Chennai, taking in this atmosphere and wondering how our selection of a Korean interpretation of a Greek classic, in Korean, with English surtitles, would work with a text savvy theatre-loving audience in Southern India. 

As a cultural organization committed to promoting a sustainable and meaningful dialogue between India and South Korea, InKo Centre is deeply conscious of its responsibility to carefully select work that represents singular aspects of Korean culture, both its proud traditions as well as the vibrant contemporary re-interpretations of that tradition.  As a cultural organization, we are constantly looking for productions that are both self reflexive and yet able to reach out and share some of what at first might seem unfamiliar, different, disconcerting even.  The critical success of such selection and presentation must take into account the familiarity of the ground between the artist and the audience, a shared memory perhaps, a re-awakened thought that connects in a powerful coalition of past and present.  Euripides’ Medea transforms into Hyoung-Taek Limb’s Medea and its Double, a resounding re-interpretation that lifts the original from its ancient past and moors it firmly in the present continuous.  Would the familiarity of the text override the language barrier?  Would the Eastern theatre aesthetic be understood and appreciated by an audience fed largely on a diet of Western theatre sensibilities? Inherent was the risk but therein lay the challenge too.  What unfolded in the next 60 minutes, reassured me that our choice was right, in that we had invited a group from Korea who presented what turned out to be one of the most original interpretations of the Greek original.  In its musicality and physicality, the production soared, stripping the text bare and infusing it with traditional Korean music, movement, folklore even while it forced the audience to recognize the contemporaneous nature of the central character Medea’s struggle as she kills her own children to avenge the terrible betrayal of faith by her husband Jason.  The ‘Koreanness’ of the interpretation was beyond dispute, the universality of the theme, beyond question.

The doubling of Medea, as lover and mother, as nurturer and murderer is reinforced by two actors playing the roles, highlighting the powerful tug of emotions in diametrically opposing directions for the protagonist as she contemplates murdering her children even while she caresses them.  The central struggle is sandwiched between the innocent play of Jason and Medea as children, carefree fun and frolic characterizing this almost idyllic state of childhood on the one hand and the adult state of frisson with a deep divide between Jason and Medea caused by Jason’s infidelity, blinded as he is with the materialistic pursuits of power, money and status.  Jason’s arguments defending his transgressions as a means of securing a safe haven for Medea and her children are utterly ludicrous and Medea’s rage and subsequent horrific action of murdering not just Jason’s mistress and her father but also her own children, carries with it all the inevitability of cause and effect.  Interspersing that cause and effect is the flush of first love; the joy of marriage; the birth of the children; the wonderful gurgle and babble of babies and their wails that keep their parents from their love making.  The naturalness of this interlude powerfully connects the audience to the here and now for they are on familiar ground having themselves been children, lovers, mothers, fathers, variously.  Mention must be made here about the tremendous skill of the actors of the Seoul Factory for the Performing Arts who sing and dance and emote with effortless ease.  It took every member of audience by surprise that the babble of the babies and their gurgle that delighted their parents was produced by the versatile singers on stage, their rendition crystal clear, their pitch as if from the cradle itself.  Hyoung Taek-Limb’s use of the Pansori tradition alongside the more regal traditional singing is another highlight of the play.  Even if the audience was unfamiliar with the intricacies of these two very different singing styles, they could easily identify that these were two very separate traditions that were being presented on stage. 

Another spectacular element of the production was the manner in which the entire length and breath of the stage was used.  The actors came through a narrow slit in the backdrop, the womb imagery reinforced with every entry and exit.  The actors as musicians sat alongside the stage or jumped right back to the centre of the stage to play their part.  And all along there glistened on the left and right a channel of water, softly illuminated by floating lamps at the start of the play, lamps snuffed out at the close of the play returning the water to the silent darkness from which it had briefly emerged.  The symbolism of the production was unmistakable.  The womb and the inevitability of birth; the yin and yang union and the importance of balance, the tilting of that balance and the consequential tide of events.  So strong were the symbolic implications, so haunting the music and so high the energy on stage that the audience could dispense with the surtitles, perhaps the only element of the production that was not effective enough.  I made a mental note that surtitling was one aspect that we will have to work on very carefully for future presentations of Korean theatre in India.

Hyoung’s actors were in stunning creamy white costumes through most of the play, off-setting to brilliant effect the crimson red of the back drop and the inky black of the water. I could see that we were drawn, collectively as audience, into this primordial space, shocked and surprised in turn by the turn of events. Hyoung’s interpretation made Medea’s action seem inevitable, plausible even. Quite consciously, Medea the mother is suppressed, for most part relegated to the background, both in terms of positioning on stage as well as in terms of the lack of force in her arguments against killing the children.  If Medea the mother stays in the background both literally and metaphorically, then Medea the avenger is deliberately in the foreground, rising in stature, forceful, pitiless, stoic in her decision to kill her children and thereby blight the sign of the love that Jason and she once shared.  Her revenge is horrific, unimaginable.  Yet, with an organic combination of superb acting, music, movement, light and sound, Hyoung and his team of performers persuaded us as audience to willingly suspend our disbelief.  And in that moment, we abetted Medea’s crime, her wrong was right and as in all tragedy there was a necessary surge and purge of emotions.  As the actors took their bows the clapping started, slowly at first then rising to a crescendo, refusing to end as the audience got up on their feet to acknowledge what had clearly been accepted as a riveting piece of theatre. 

Later that evening, after the show, in the Q&A with the director and the cast ; in the press interviews and subsequent reviews that followed; in the many phone calls, sms and e mail messages that we received,  it was amply clear that Medea and its Double had made a deep impact, activating discussions that examined the ‘Koreanness’ of this interpretation; the meaning of an Asian aesthetic of theatre and the very act of participation as audience in a journey that disconcertingly traversed terrain that lay suspended between the fleetingly familiar and the challenging unknown. 

Last year, InKo Centre in association with the Korea Foundation and AsiaNow Productions opened The Hindu Metroplus Theatre Festival with the rollicking version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the Yohangza Company from Korea.  And what an unforgettable opening that was! The audience was enthralled by Jung-Ung Yang’s wonderfully mischievious presentation of this much-loved Shakespearean comedy. For many in the audience, this was their first introduction to theatre from Korea.  This year, Medea and its Double, presented in association with the Korea Foundation and the Korea Arts Management Service closed the same Festival.  Almost all of who came to Medea and its Double this year were returning for more, having experienced and loved the rambunctious, audacious Korean Dream in 2008. Medea and the Dream, two very different productions, in mood, treatment and theme, both powerful in its integration of indigenous Korean forms with contemporary resonances, two companies from Korea over two consecutive years.  From the range and depth of the positive reviews that we have received following the Medea experience, I think we have succeeded in whetting their appetite further!  We at InKo Centre look forward towards presenting more exciting work from Korea to audiences in India in the years to come.  It has been an invigorating journey so far and we have no doubt that what lies ahead will be fascinating and challenging in equal measure.